Equal to Serve: Women and Men Working Together Revealing the Gospel

299 Pages·1998·7.56 MB·English

by  Gretchen Gaebelein Hull

Equal to Serve
Women and Men Working Together
Revealing the Gospel
Gretchen Gaebelein Hull
o g BakerBooks
A Division of Baker Book House Co.
Grand Rapids, Michigan 49516
<0 I'my, I'm | |*y (irr|< ItPIt (inrlu'lt’ln I lull
Published 1998 by Baker Bnokrt
a division of Maker Honk I lot me C ’ompuny
P.O. Box 6287, (•rand Rapids, Ml <19516 (.287
Previously published by Hominy, 11. Revell
Printed in the United States of America
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy,
recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief
quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hull, Gretchen Gaebelein.
Equal to serve : women and men working together revealing the Gospel /
Gretchen Gaebelein Hull,
p. cm.
Originally published: Old Tappan, N.J.: F. H. Revell, cl987, in series: A Crucial
questions book.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8010-5822-8 (pbk.)
1. Woman (Christian theology) I. Title.
BT704.H85 1998
261.8344—dc21 97-43961
Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture 1962,1963,1968,1971,1972,1973,1975,1977.
quotations are from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW Used by permission.
INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®.
Copyright© 1973,1978,1984 by International Scripture quotations identified neb are from
Bible Society. Used by permission of The New English Bible. Copyright© 1961,
Zondervan Publishing House. All rights 1970 by The Delegates of Oxford University
reserved. Press and The Syndics of the Cambridge
University Press. Reprinted by permission.
Scripture quotations identified Berkeley are
from the Modem Language Bible, The New Scripture quotations identified rsv are from
Berkeley Version in Modem English, Revised the Revised Standard Version of the Bible,
Edition © 1945,1959,1969 by Hendrickson copyright 1946,1952,1971 by the Division of
Publishers, Inc., and are used by permission. Christian Education of the National Council
of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Used
Scripture quotations identified Jerusalem by permission.
Bible are from THE JERUSALEM BIBLE,
copyright © 1966 by Darton, Longman & Scripture quotations identified tev are from
Todd, Ltd. and Doubleday, a division of the Good News Bible, Old Testament
Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, copyright © American Bible Society 1976;
Inc. Reprinted by permission. New Testament copyright © American Bible
Society 1966,1971,1976. Used by
Scripture quotations identified kjv are from permission.
the King James Version of the Bible.
For current information about all releases
Scripture quotations identified nas are from from Baker Book House, visit our web site:
the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE ®. http://www.bakerbooks.com
Copyright © The Lockman Foundation 1960,
Contents
Publisher's Foreword 9
1 The Journey Begins 13
2 Conflicting Signals 32
3 The Straw Woman 45
4 Equal Ambassadors 64
5 True or False? 76
6 Equal Opportunity 105
7 The Forgotten Woman and the Invisible Man 129
8 Crucial Choices 146
9 Who's in Charge Here? 178
10 Liberty and Justice for All 208
11 Saved to Serve Together 233
Appendix I: Does Order of Creation, Redemption, and Climax
Demand Female Supremacy? by Alvera Mickelsen 245
Appendix II: Exegetical Difficulties in the "Hard Passages," by
Sanford Douglas Hull 251
Appendix III: The Classical Concept of Head as "Source," by
Catherine Clark Kroeger 267
Notes 284
For Further Reading 292
Index 295

\
Publisher's
Foreword
In a world that has become an interrelated global village of
4.5 billion men, women, and children, the problems of human
existence have reached crisis proportions. People today are
stretching to achieve new heights, but their very advances in
technological and scientific realms sometimes threaten them
with the loss of life's most precious gifts—and even life itself. In
the midst of the crises, Christians believe the possibility for
unprecedented good, for the flourishing of freedom, and for
peace exists. This hopeful outlook is itself possible in a violent,
threatened world because the Christian views the world from
the center point of history, the Cross, where God dealt
redemptively with the crux of the human problem.
While Christians do not doubt God's ability nor His final
victory, they struggle to know and to implement God's plan.
Thankfully, there is an ongoing discussion of contemporary
problems as Christians wrestle with agendas for action. As the
publisher of the Crucial Questions series, we earnestly hope
that these volumes will contribute positively to that discussion.
Although the viewpoints expressed by the authors in this series
may not always be those of the publisher, we are grateful for
the opportunity to present them to the public, and we trust that
these volumes will serve to stimulate Christians to fulfill their
role as salt and light in today's world.
I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is
the power of God for the salvation of every­
one who believes. . . .
Romans 1:16
Jesus said: "The Spirit gives life; the flesh
counts for nothing. The words I have spo­
ken to you are spirit and they are life."
John 6:63
What God's Son has told me, take for truth I
do; Truth himself speaks truly, or there's
nothing true.
GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS
Equal to Serve

Chapter 1
The Journey
Begins
In a crowded departure lounge at John F. Kennedy Interna­
tional Airport, in New York City, on the afternoon of August
13, 1985, I waited to board an airplane that would take me to
San Francisco, where I would connect with a flight to Australia.
My plane was scheduled to leave at 4:15, but 4:15 came and
went, then 5:15. Many travelers saw their carefully planned
time between flights ebbing away.
Nervously we passengers began to compare notes about our
connecting flights. The man next to me asked where I was
going, and when I responded "Sydney,” he inquired what took
me there. I told him that I was going to be speaking at a con­
ference, and he asked, "On what?" My reply: "Equality of
women, especially equality of women in Christian ministry."
He looked at me for a moment and then said, "Equality of
women? You know, that's a subject that doesn't touch me at
all. I just never have any occasion to think about it."
As we boarded the plane I thought, It doesn't touch you at all?
You never think about it? Don't you know any women? Don't you
ever work with any women? After all, women make up half the human
race!
Well, this book is written for people who are thinking about
some of the crucial questions regarding women today and who
want to explore these questions within the context of Bible
truth. This book is written especially for those who see these
13
EQUAL TO SERVE
questions not just as women's concerns, but as human con­
cerns. These questions relate to all humanity, because what
concerns one half of the human race must of necessity involve
and affect the other half. More and more people feel convinced
of the need to deal with social issues at this most basic level—
men and women as the two components of society—and they
realize that if we do not have harmony here we cannot expect
to solve problems on racial, economic, or political levels.
Even a superficial glance at newspapers or magazines shows
us that tension and disharmony exist between men and women.
We see increased incidence of divorce, that most visible evi­
dence of severed relationships. We are increasingly conscious
of violence between the sexes and of crimes like wife abuse and
rape. We see exploitation and degradation of both sexes in the
burgeoning pornography industry. These societal hurts touch
us all, because when one member hurts, eventually we all hurt
(1 Corinthians 12:26).
Over the years some people have sought to avoid dealing
with such crucial questions by retreating into isolated com­
munes, but most of us cannot afford the luxury of that sort of
withdrawal from the contemporary scene. We have to live and
work in the “real'' world, where a societal acceptance of equal­
ity of persons, if only imperfectly implemented, confronts us.
We Americans are affected by Affirmative Action and
Equal Economic Opportunity programs, and we must wrestle
with the concept of comparable worth. We live in a society
that finds many more women in the work force, most of them
out of economic necessity, a society that includes more single
women and sees more single women as heads of households.
We are concerned with how best to use the vast, unused
labor resource of older homemakers whose children are now
grown. We read of women who feel called to enter fields
formerly closed to them, such as the professional clergy. We
are also aware that many men feel threatened by these
changes as they ask, “But what of our place in this changing
world? What will happen to what we have been taught is our
role in life?"
When many Christians, especially evangelicals, think about
these current issues, they may yearn for the “good old days."
14